4 ms·

most european countries have such a xenophobic system, but the uk, canada, iraland, new zealand, and australia have really open systems in place

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
tokenadult 15y ago
How many people are using those visas to enter those countries? Meanwhile, how many people are emigrating from those countries to the United States, under the current United States system? (I know quite a few recent immigrants from the United Kingdom and from Ireland in my community.)
muzz 15y ago
then those countries should be receiving the benefits of immigrant-entrepreneurs and now be hotbeds of innovation because of it. it doesn't seem like that's happening.
- potatolicious 15y ago
  I'm Canadian, I'd argue Canada is receiving the benefits of immigrant-entrepreneurs. There are considerable innovations coming out of that country - the fact that it's not a hotbed for internet startups seems hardly relevant in the big picture. Businesses are being created by immigrants, who are creating wealth and employment in their respective communities. The fact that this in general has nothing to do with dotcoms is really a detail. Canada continues to be extremely competitive in traditional engineering disciplines, and is world-leading in many fields of science, not least of which is molecular engineering. The University of Toronto, after all, still holds the patent on insulin. Next time you see a video of the International Space Station, with its bleeding-edge, unprecedented robotic arm, see if you can zoom and see which nation's flag is on it. Or dig into the US's collection of scientific and communications satellites and see how much of their R&D actually occurs in Canada. I hope people on HN realize that the word "innovation" applies to all manners of fields. So often I feel like this community has blinders on, and very narrowly define "innovation" as "things that occur in my field".
  - muzz 15y ago
    The piece cites companies like Google, eBay, and Yahoo. Can you provide three examples anywhere close to those in terms of number of jobs, in any industry? The benefit may indeed be non-zero, but it doesn't seem that the benefit is signficant.
    - potatolicious 15y ago
      RIM and ATI? One got acquired and continues to thrive, the other one is busy circling the drain - but both were innovative, significant employers, and remain so, on the scale of eBay and Yahoo. Both companies were founded by immigrants (Chinese for ATI, Greek/Turkish for RIM). Google is a juggernaut that I won't touch simply because they're such an outlier, even in the get-big-fast world of dotcoms. And let's be honest, in terms of job-creating power, this "innovative" industry of software is a drop in the bucket: http://jobs.lovetoknow.com/Largest_American_Employers http://jobs.lovetoknow.com/Largest_American_Employers - the employers with the largest employment impact are not the ones we would traditionally consider "innovative". For reference, Google has about 30K employees world-wide. In any case, we can argue about semantics and labor theory all day. Why don't you go to Toronto some time, climb the CN Tower, hang out in Chinatown, take the TTC to Bathurst, Eglington, Pape, and tell me that Canadian immigration policy hasn't been a gigantic boon for the country. I'm a Canadian expat in the US right now, and the difference is startling. Canada has done a remarkable job of integrating its immigrant population into the middle class - the US likes to imagine itself as a melting pot, but for the most part ethnic diversity in this country is still separated along enormous socioeconomic lines - lines that are significantly blurrier in Canada. The fact that Canadian immigrants are first-class members of society from day one I believe is key to this difference. As is the fact that a "straight to permanent residence" policy sets the bar higher. The US is letting in enormous numbers of refugees and family reunification individual - people of questionable worth to society - with "straight to PR" tracks, but still bars the door to working professionals and highly educated academics with decade-long "indentured H-1B servitude". You tell me if that policy makes sense.
      - int3rnaut 15y ago
- marshallp 15y ago
  until recently, the uk got much of its tax base from the financial sector, much of which is run on the backs of immigrants (hedge funds and invesment banks), especially those from america

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

tokenadult 15y ago

How many people are using those visas to enter those countries? Meanwhile, how many people are emigrating from those countries to the United States, under the current United States system? (I know quite a few recent immigrants from the United Kingdom and from Ireland in my community.)

muzz 15y ago

then those countries should be receiving the benefits of immigrant-entrepreneurs and now be hotbeds of innovation because of it. it doesn't seem like that's happening.

potatolicious 15y ago
I'm Canadian, I'd argue Canada is receiving the benefits of immigrant-entrepreneurs. There are considerable innovations coming out of that country - the fact that it's not a hotbed for internet startups seems hardly relevant in the big picture. Businesses are being created by immigrants, who are creating wealth and employment in their respective communities. The fact that this in general has nothing to do with dotcoms is really a detail. Canada continues to be extremely competitive in traditional engineering disciplines, and is world-leading in many fields of science, not least of which is molecular engineering. The University of Toronto, after all, still holds the patent on insulin. Next time you see a video of the International Space Station, with its bleeding-edge, unprecedented robotic arm, see if you can zoom and see which nation's flag is on it. Or dig into the US's collection of scientific and communications satellites and see how much of their R&D actually occurs in Canada. I hope people on HN realize that the word "innovation" applies to all manners of fields. So often I feel like this community has blinders on, and very narrowly define "innovation" as "things that occur in my field".
- muzz 15y ago
  The piece cites companies like Google, eBay, and Yahoo. Can you provide three examples anywhere close to those in terms of number of jobs, in any industry? The benefit may indeed be non-zero, but it doesn't seem that the benefit is signficant.
  - potatolicious 15y ago
    RIM and ATI? One got acquired and continues to thrive, the other one is busy circling the drain - but both were innovative, significant employers, and remain so, on the scale of eBay and Yahoo. Both companies were founded by immigrants (Chinese for ATI, Greek/Turkish for RIM). Google is a juggernaut that I won't touch simply because they're such an outlier, even in the get-big-fast world of dotcoms. And let's be honest, in terms of job-creating power, this "innovative" industry of software is a drop in the bucket: http://jobs.lovetoknow.com/Largest_American_Employers http://jobs.lovetoknow.com/Largest_American_Employers - the employers with the largest employment impact are not the ones we would traditionally consider "innovative". For reference, Google has about 30K employees world-wide. In any case, we can argue about semantics and labor theory all day. Why don't you go to Toronto some time, climb the CN Tower, hang out in Chinatown, take the TTC to Bathurst, Eglington, Pape, and tell me that Canadian immigration policy hasn't been a gigantic boon for the country. I'm a Canadian expat in the US right now, and the difference is startling. Canada has done a remarkable job of integrating its immigrant population into the middle class - the US likes to imagine itself as a melting pot, but for the most part ethnic diversity in this country is still separated along enormous socioeconomic lines - lines that are significantly blurrier in Canada. The fact that Canadian immigrants are first-class members of society from day one I believe is key to this difference. As is the fact that a "straight to permanent residence" policy sets the bar higher. The US is letting in enormous numbers of refugees and family reunification individual - people of questionable worth to society - with "straight to PR" tracks, but still bars the door to working professionals and highly educated academics with decade-long "indentured H-1B servitude". You tell me if that policy makes sense.
    - int3rnaut 15y ago
marshallp 15y ago
until recently, the uk got much of its tax base from the financial sector, much of which is run on the backs of immigrants (hedge funds and invesment banks), especially those from america